MyBlogLog to Rebrand, Upgrade Features
Over the weekend, it was announced that social networking site for bloggers MyBlogLog will be rebranded (to something Yahoo-ized, perhaps?), redesigned, and rolled out with a new “widget 2.0″ component in the near future.
I actually think that MyBlogLog’s widget – which allows bloggers to see who is visiting their site, click their profile picture to learn more about them, interact with them, and so on – is far and away its best feature. Getting more detailed statistics or rich information about site visitors would be exciting, so I’m intrigued to find out what the “2.0″ will be all about.
As far as the MyBlogLog site itself, the fact that it’s very stripped down and simple at present is something of a double-edged sword: easy-to-use, but not much to do there at present.
Mike Arrington says that with the upcoming changes, infrastructure upgrades to ensure performance (i.e. not dragging down the page load time of a site where the widget is embedded, the surest way of getting people to drop you like a hot rock) must come first. The Social Web notes that spam is another significant challenge to MBL’s future.
While I’ve heard people complain about performance problems and spam (particularly the latter), I have not personally encountered trouble with either.
I’m excited to see what changes lay ahead for MyBlogLog. I was a relatively early adopter and cheerleader for the site turned somewhat concerned skeptic, so I look forward to seeing what wrinkles that this powerful networking and communications tool may offer.
One interesting prospect: maybe MyBlogLog will aspire to become a LinkedIn for bloggers? Picture advancing features for adding, organizing, and keeping in touch with blogging contacts.
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May 14th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Thanks for the link,
- Steve (The Social Web)
May 14th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
My pleasure !
May 16th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Yeah, the sweet spot between sites like LinkedIn and blogging platforms/communities has yet to be found. I suspect there are a few key features still missing.
Certainly “the one with the most friends wins” is the wrong approach. We need quality, not quantity, especially in business networks. The bigger problem, though, may be pulling in a lot of people who just aren’t very communicative online. There will have to be something very compellingly helpful to draw them into the conversation.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Yes, there are already umpteen number of social networkign choices out there (with MySpace and probably now Facebook as “default” choices). The question is how will the “second tier” and below innovate to meet user needs.
So beyond branding and marketing and so forth, it comes down to those useful tools. That, and being able to herd the right kinds of cats together so that they can network with one another